After ending a workday as a hotel housekeeper, Willa—a single 40-year-old petite, self-described plain-Jane—went to her locker in the maintenance room, where she strapped on a fanny pack full of bird seed, then left the premises to begin her half-mile stroll home. Prone to dallying due to her fondness for stopping at trees frequented by birds, Willa often took an hour to arrive at the small two-bedroom apartment she shared with her mother.
Along with offering Willa an opportunity to relax after the hectic pace her job required, after-work detours and dawdling were a retreat to a world in which laudable landings, frolicsome fluttering and peppy pecking were usual. Briefly put, she found her time with her winged friends not only calming but also inspiring. To Willa, watching the timid birds gather the trust needed to dart close to her for food was a much needed way to feel heartened.
When Willa arrived home that hot July day, she found her cranky 75-year-old mother ready with a request. “I need a prescription picked up right away. I missed my noon dose!” fussed the mother as she gripped her walker to stand.
Still by the door, Willa answered “OK,” then turned to head for the back of the building, where their clunker was parked. Though she preferred walking when out and about, the four-mile distance to the department store pharmacy meant she had to drive. Adding to her displeasure was a kaput air conditioner—an inconvenience that called for lowering the car windows.
After hastily choosing a parking space, Willa found backing in was a tight squeeze. Because the car on her right was on the white divider line, she had to park close to the line on her left. The adjustment caused her to lightly tap the car next to her when she opened her door. Once she saw that the minor mishap didn’t nick the nearby car, Willa closed her door and started for the store.
But before Willa could pass her fender, she was stopped by the driver of the car she’d ever so slightly dinged. “Where do you think you’re going!” growled a burly thirtyish fellow after he erupted from his banged up auto waving an envelope.
Frightened by the man, Willa looked around while stepping backward. Finding no one close by, she froze in place as her heart began to pound.
Hurrying around the rear of his car, the snarling man pulled back shoulders to bulge chest. “When you do a dumb thing like dent someone’s door, you have to hand over insurance, registration and license info!” he scolded as he gestured toward a foot-wide dent in his rear door—a different door than the one Willa had barely touched.
Sure she didn’t cause the damage the angry man pointed out, a stammering Willa tried to explain how the door she exited wasn’t within reach of the dent he was complaining about. “I, I, I didn’t. . .”
“Something’s wrong with you!” interrupted the berating bully as he slammed hands on hips.
Still intimidated by the man’s bluster, Willa rushed to the passenger’s side of her car, opened the door and removed the requested information from her glove compartment. Though troubled by the fellow’s wrongful blame, she was too scared to suggest involving the police. Fearful of the irate man, she hurriedly exchanged particulars, then stuffed her papers into a pocket.
Looking around to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard, the menacing fellow delivered a parting threat. “I don’t put up with people crossing me; so, keep in mind I know where you live!”
Anxious to escape the presence of the brute, Willa scurried toward the store with her heart still thumping.
While traipsing home from work the next day, Willa mulled how she’d cowered the previous evening. The bullies are in charge, she silently and wearily concluded. After taking a meandering side street, she came upon a group of tiny finches huddled in a familiar cherry blossom tree. “Yellow-bellied frumps, like me, have birds for friends,” she belittled herself before half-heartedly tossing a handful of seeds, then watching a half-dozen or so of her chums swoop down for the treat..
Finding her mother in the bathroom when she arrived home, Willa pulled a frozen dinner from the refrigerator, then trudged to the nearby counter to place the meal in the microwave. After setting the timer and pushing start, she stepped to her left to reach into an overhead cabinet for a glass. But before she could grab the knob, an abrupt crackling prompted her to jerk backwards in time to see fireworks behind the oven’s glass door—a display that ended with a puff of smoke.
Soon sliding her walker past the bathroom door and into the kitchen, the mother saw the haze over the microwave. “Great!” she sarcastically grumbled. “I bet you got no money saved. . . . I told you to get a credit card like everyone else!”
“You don’t have a card, either,” softly noted Willa.
“How many times I gotta tell you old people squeaking by on social security got no business with those things?” carried on the mother.
Willa had her own common sense reply. “Sooner or later the cards put people who don’t make a living wage, like me, in a jam.”
“All I know is people who hate cooking meals and washing pans need what you just broke!” griped the mother.
“We need a backup. Maybe it’s time to have the landlord fix the range,” suggested Willa.
“OK. but don’t complain when he jacks up the rent for doing what’s he’s supposed to do,” warned the mother.
Wanting their squabbling to end, Willa went to her bedroom closet, where she knelt, then shoved a hand into the toe of a boot in order to extract her life savings: 50 dollars. It might be enough, she thought as she stood, put the money into pants pocket, then turned to find her mother standing in the bedroom doorway. “I may have enough for another cheap microwave,” informed Willa.
Pulling into the store’s lot mindful of the door-dent incident a day ago, Willa parked in the rear—away from other cars. To her dismay, though, her precaution didn’t enable her to proceed without difficulty. Half way to the entrance, a disturbance caught her attention: A growling mother and her groaning child were dead ahead.
Pausing about 15 feet from the commotion, a fretful Willa hoped the ordeal would soon end. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, the infuriated mother stomped into full view tugging her tearful son. An instant later, a jarring yank by the stocky woman preceded the boy being forced to endure jarring backside blows. “Stop crying!” furiously shouted the mother, ignorant to the fact that her swats made it too hard for the boy to comply.
Taken aback by the ferocious flogging the fuming woman had dished out, Willa came to a halt. Don’t be a wimp, she told herself after another whack brought about an especially loud shriek from the child. Sure she lacked the words needed to be helpful, Willa slowly creep toward the mistreatment, hoping the mother would decide her shopping needed to get underway.
Soon forced to realize her presence wasn’t going to deter the enraged woman, Willa acted on a fear-driven impulse by lurching toward a patch of ground next to the car’s front tire. Then, while crouching out of sight, she pulled her 50 dollars from her pocket. Still guided by her alarm, she sprang back into view as the boy again wailed.
Unsure what the stranger was up to, the woman gruffly questioned Willa. “What do you want?”
Willa held up her crumbled 50 dollars, then nervously stepped closer to the mother. “Given there’s no one else nearby, you must have been the one who dropped this money,” answered Willa.
Straightening to deal with what she saw to be an intrusive trick of some sort, the mother flexed her husky frame while narrowing eyes. “What did you say?” she asked with a snarl.
“I just picked this 50 bucks up off the ground. You dropped it, right?” again fabricated Willa, continuing to hold out the money.
After glancing over both shoulders to make sure no one was approaching, the mother sternly lied while snatching the money. “Yeah, it’s mine!”
“Ok, then. I guess we can both be on our way,” meekly noted Willa before turning around to head back to her car. Please, lady, focus on your bit of good fortune, privately wished Willa, hoping the mother’s mood would improve.
Anxious to spend her small windfall, the woman started for the store with her son struggling to keep up.
Somewhat pleased to continue to hear silence as she reached for her car door, Willa watched as the mother and son approached the store’s entrance. She needs real help, Willa told herself before driving by the woman’s car, then copying down her license plate number in order to give social services a way to track her down.
Expecting her mother to be extra-ornery once learning they’d have to go without a microwave for at least a few weeks, Willa delayed relaying what had happened by visiting an out-of-the-way park. After filling pockets with seeds she’d taken from a large container she kept in the car, she started toward a row of trees. While flinging the feed by the trunks, she let tears flow. Things are making less and less sense, she lamented.
As Willa anticipated, her mother pounced when, after seeing Willa enter empty-handed, she heard what happened to the 50 dollars. “That was stupid!” chided the mother. “All you had to do was report the woman to a store manager! Something’s wrong with you!” ridiculed the elder, unknowingly repeating what the door-dent bully had said.
“I guess I sometimes get simpleminded when I’m caught by surprise,” conceded Willa. “I’m hoping that turning in the license plate number of the woman to social services might do some good,” she noted.
“Do you think that vicious woman won’t quickly figure out you’re the one who turned her in? She’ll be looking for you every time she pulls into that parking lot!” admonished the mother.
“Somebody’s gotta try to do something!” insisted Willa.
After pushing her walker to the kitchen table, the mother sat, then folded arms. “Not a wimp, like you! . . . Anyway, I talked to the landlord about fixing the range while you were gone. After he said he’d get it fixed, he mentioned there’s a rent hike in the works. Just like I told you.”
A disheartened Willa, moved to and looked out a window. “You might as well know the car insurance is likely also going up. I got caught up in a parking lot scam. Once again, I became too overwhelmed to do anything but kowtow.”
Rather than continue to put Willa down, the mother began to weep.
Unable to recall ever seeing her mother cry, Willa took a step toward the elder, then tried to be consoling. “There’s good news. Recent events have given me the nudge I need to ask for a raise,” she fibbed.
Remaining upset, the mother pressed hands to face to hide tears.
More concerned, Willa again tried to cheer her mother up. “Where’s the feistiness I’m used to seeing? You’re supposed to call me a wimp for waiting so long to ask for a bump in pay.”
While patting eyes with a sleeve, the mother forced out her words. “I need, . . .I need to wear. . .”
“Wear what? I’m your daughter. You can tell me,” prodded Willa.
Continuing to skirt what was troubling her, the mother pulled 20 dollars from her shirt pocket, placed the money on the table, then blurted a request. “I need you to take that money and go to the store for something personal.”
Willa sat across from the elder, then patiently waited to be told what to purchase.
“I’ve got a new monthly bill—one that’s gonna mean giving up the goodies I like to snack on at night. That’s no small sacrifice for a housebound hobbler,” shared the mother, turning so that she wasn’t facing Willa. “Old age is one mortifying loss after another. . . . You see, hear, taste, remember and move less and less and less. Then, just when you settle into being a useless blob, you wake up being reminded you haven’t loss your sense of smell.”
Wanting to let her mother continue to vent, Willa remained silent.
“The reminder is another loss—a loss more disgusting and embarrassing than the others,” described the mother before again sobbing with hands covering face.
She’s hurting badly, thought Willa, well aware of her mother’s usual sense of pride.
After taking a full breath, the mother finally disclosed the object of her devastation. “I need to begin wearing diapers,” she revealed with shoulders bent and chin dropped to chest. “Thank goodness I’m still able to clean and change myself.”
Willa tried to appreciate and ease her mother’s anguish. “I know sharing that wasn’t easy for you, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” assured Willa.
“You can’t understand!” snapped the mother.
Again hearing the hurt in her mother’s voice, Willa hung her head. “You’re right. . . . I’ll go to the store right away.”
After rolling down the front windows of the car to create a breeze, Willa headed for the store still mulling the indignity of having to wear a diaper. Continuing to ponder her mother’s fate kept her from noticing the large white arrow pointing toward her in the parking lot aisle—an arrow that indicated she was going the wrong way.
Half way down the aisle, a scowling elderly man, driving a large pickup truck, came toward her. Quick to accommodate the fellow, Willa steered to her right, far enough for the man to easily pass her. To her surprise, thought, the annoyed fellow steered to his left—a move that put him directly in front of Willa.
Seeing that the glaring fellow was agitated, Willa kept her foot on the brake while she watched the man inch within two feet of her bumper before stopping.
Certain he had Willa’s attention, the fellow angrily shook a fist near his windshield. Then, after crossly pointing downward, he jerked a finger in a half circle—a gesture ordering Willa to turn around.
Correctly guessing she messed up by going in the wrong direction, Willa accepted blame. Deciding the quickest way to end the unpleasant encounter was to back into the first parking space she came upon, she put the gearshift in reverse, then twisted head and shoulders in order to watch for an available space through the rear windshield. Wanting to further communicate her wish to accommodate the man, she backed up slowly.
“Continuing to fume, the fellow crept forward in order to maintain a short distance from Willa.
Quickly realizing a nearby space wasn’t available, Willa steered closer to the parked cars, making it even easier for the man to get by her.
Still unwilling to scoot around Willa, the stubborn fellow again pulled forward, keeping his truck close to Willa’s front bumper.
“Why won’t he just pass me?” muttered Willa, just before a powerful mental about face overcame her. No longer her usual self, Willa was suddenly determined to keep the man from being yet one more person putting her in her place. “It’s time to fix what’s wrong with you!” she firmly told herself, recalling what the door-dent bully and her mother had charged. Possessed by a sudden need to stand up for herself, she leaned back and stiffened arms while relishing the compulsion to stomp on the accelerator and, as a result, turn her car into a battering ram. Ready to violently end the standoff, Willa sent an unflinching daredevil stare her adversary’s way.
Baffled by the eerie eyes now peering back at him, the fellow clenched his teeth as he wrung his steering wheel. “She looks ready to snap,” he muttered, unexpectedly open to the possibility that the deadlock he’d created might not turn out as he had planned.
Willa, meanwhile, remained focused on one thing: A desire to bury the gas pedal and, in doing so, crash her way from cowardice to boldness.
Then, as Willa slid her foot to the right edge of the brake—an act that put her foot closer to the accelerator, something astonishing happened: A finch flew through her open passenger’s window. After landing on the seat, the bird pecked a few spilled seeds, then looked up at Willa.
The presence of the tiny visitor jolted Willa from the ill will that had overtaken her. As shoulders drooped, her wish to fight back was suddenly replaced with a wish to give way. Feeling as thought her soul had been restored by the unexpected visitor, Willa reverted to the kindhearted, humble self she’d long struggled to appreciate. Wanting the magnificent, redeeming moment to last, she sat still.
Baffled by and weary from the trying encounter, Willa’s combatant rolled down his window as he pulled alongside her. “Nutjob!” he blared before speeding from the lot.
Still dazzled by and thankful for the finch’s appearance, Willa watched as the bird leaped onto the nearby open window, then soared from the parking-lot battlefield.
1. What makes backing down difficult?
2. How might the elderly better cope with ongoing losses?
3. Discuss how Willa dealt with the mother abusing her child.
4. Why did Willa almost lose control?
5. How can people better keep themselves from doing something regrettable?